Thread: Question on Traxide Dual Battery setup

Originally Posted by Mungus

Richard, just remember, experience has proven to me that continuous short runs of less than 20-30minutes will not be sufficient for a charging a dual battery setup. That is the reason I installed the switch on the earth wire to turn off the isolator during these periods. No longer any issues with main battery. It’s always above 80% SOC and I simply whack the Aux. on the Ctek charger every three or so weeks to maintain. If I’m going for a longer trip, or camping, flick the switch and the benefits of the traxide isolator in play.

Hang on. Why? Are you saying the parasitic loss of Traxide is so high? The drain is the drain. If it’s spread across two batteries or one it’s the same, plus the additional drain of the Traxide. The alternator can charge one as well as two.
Actually, I might see the issue. Spreading the passion between two means it will see a theoretical higher state of charge and not put in as much effort to charge.

Not talking about parasitic drain of the traxide. That is minimal. More so the so called smart alternator system not being capable of charging two batteries when only doing short 20 minute drives. If I can find some time I’ll print out a few Ctek monitoring graphs that really show the gradual loss of charge state of both batteries before and after fitting the switch. I was so grateful seeing the results.

Originally Posted by Mungus

Richard, just remember, experience has proven to me that continuous short runs of less than 20-30minutes will not be sufficient for a charging a dual battery setup. That is the reason I installed the switch on the earth wire to turn off the isolator during these periods. No longer any issues with main battery. It’s always above 80% SOC and I simply whack the Aux. on the Ctek charger every three or so weeks to maintain. If I’m going for a longer trip, or camping, flick the switch and the benefits of the traxide isolator in play.

Thats exactly what i do,and since i did it to mine about 5 1/2 yrs ago,no issues at all since.
And the main battery then lasted almost 5 yrs,which is amazing.

It also stops the traxide relay draining power as well,which adds up over a few weeks.

My SC80 is an older model,apparently the newer model doesn't use as much power.

Hi folks and sorry but you all have it wrong.

The problem of short drives not charging batteries properly has nothing to do with whether you have my DBS, or some other DBS or no DBS at all.

My systems reduce the following problem BUT they do not stop it from occurring.

Lack of use and/or continuous short drives cause the batteries to sulphate.

As batteries sulphate, they not only loose capacity, but the remaining capacity is harder to recharge because you need to drive longer, BUT YOU DO NOT.

A crude and exaggerated way of demonstrating this is when the battery is in good condition, like when you first bought it, and you have say 100Ah of battery capacity available.
You start your motor and use 10 units of energy while starting.

With a battery in good condition you drive for 10 minutes and replace 9 units of used energy, and if you drive for 10 minutes, you will replace the full 10 units used while stating the motor.

Over a long period of time, and continuous short driving, even when 9 of the 10 units are being replaced, you are still slowly, very slowly discharging your battery.

Eventually, you get to a point where the state of discharge in the battery is at or below a level where sulphating starts to build up in the battery.

But every time you start your motor, you still use the same 10 units of energy.

This sulphating buildup will now mean that the ten minute drives only allow 8 units of energy to be replace, or that you now need to drive for 20 minutes to the full 10 units used to start the motor, to be replaced, but you are still not fully charging the battery.

It would not be unusual to have that 100Ah battery down to 60Ah before you realised you had a problem.

Based on some of the replies above, this is where many of you are probably at, at this time.

So Tim/Drivesafe. What is the point of the BMS and the “advanced” battery management in the LR vehicles. Are you suggesting this is a new phenomenon????? We have had cars for a little while now and it wasn’t until “smart” chargers and BMS was introduced that batteries were damaged far earlier. 3 years from a battery is magnitudes worse than my prior life remembered.
My batteries have lasted 8-10 years prior, and I admit that electronic loads have increased, but with god-like BMS, shouldn’t my charging system compensate for it and smash my battery with amps to keep it charged? Feel free to slander the LR BMS for being too “caring “

Hi Jeff the big difference is our driving habits have changed.

Not so long ago, our Land Rover was our daily drive vehicle.

In many cases, this is now not the case and the changed usage is causing the problems we are covering here.

The reality is short trips are the norm

Is there a solution to this, regular charging for example

Richard

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Jeff the big difference is our driving habits have changed.

Not so long ago, our Land Rover was our daily drive vehicle.

In many cases, this is now not the case and the changed usage is causing the problems we are covering here.

No. My driving hasn’t hasn’t changed. My vehicle has. Stupid smart charging Systems have instead of 14.4V constant voltage and amperage to supply the battery as required.